Design, Form, and Chaos

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14880

Paul Rand's stature as one of the world's leading graphic designers is incontestable. For half a century his pioneering work in the field of advertising design and typography has exerted a profound influence on the design profession; he almost single-handedly transformed "commercial art" from a practice that catered to the lowest common denominator of taste to one that could assert its place among the other fine arts. Among the numerous clients for whom he has been a consultant and/or designer are the American Broadcasting Company, IBM Corporation, and Westinghouse Electric Corporation.

In this instructive book, Rand speaks about the contemporary practice of graphic design, explaining the process and passion that foster good design and indicting fadism and trendiness. Illustrating his ideas with examples of his own graphic work as well as with the work of artists he admires, Rand discusses such topics as: the values on which aesthetic judgments are based; the part played by intuition in good design; the proper relationship between management and designers; the place of market research; how and when to use computers in the production of a design; choosing a typeface; principles of book design; and the thought processes that lead to a final design. The centerpiece of the book consists of seven design portfolios—with diagrams and ultimate choices—that Rand used to present his logos to clients such as NEXT, IDEO, and IBM.

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Print publication date March 1993 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780300055535

EISBN 9780300230239

Illustrations 116

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

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List of illustrations

Rooster weathervane
Fruit
Poster, New York Art Directors Club
Untitled
Untitled
Pitcher
Advertisement, Westinghouse
Advertisement, Bahlsen
Graphic Arts Production Yearbook
Cover design, UCLA
Victorian mask
Caricature: Hitler or Groucho?
Hypothetical IBM logo
Poster, Tri Arts Press
Cover design, Knopf
Unknown
Poster, UCLA
Poster, University of Hartford
Old sign
Poster, PDR
Recruiting poster, Yale University
Unknown
Rosette, enlargement of a toy roundel
Exercise to bring the question of intuition down to earth
Exercise to bring the question of intuition down to earth
Poster, Tokyo and Osaka Communication Arts
Sketch for Tokyo and Osaka Communication Arts poster
Logo, IBM
Logo, Westinghouse
Trademark, American Broadcasting Company
Hieroglyph
Logo, UPS
Annual report cover, Cummins Engine Company
Logo, Pastore DePamphilis Rampone
IBM identification
Logo, Monell Chemical Senses Center
Logo, Mossberg & Company Inc.
Logo, Benjamin Franklin 90th anniversary
Logo, IBM
Logo, Irwin Financial Corporation
IBM identification
NEXT logo, Caslon typeface
NEXT logo, Bifur typeface
NEXT logos, possible typefaces
NEXT logos, use of lowercase letters
NEXT logos, lowercase e
NEXT logos, e as an mnemonic element
NEXT logo, with cube
NEXT logo, two lines
NEXT logos
NEXT logo, on envelope
Fashion logos from The Limited brochure
The Limited logo, the problem of readability
The Limited logos, capital letters
The Limited logos, the problem of the "the"
The Limited logo, doubling the stroke of each letter
The Limited logo
The Limited logo
The Limited logo, shopping bag
The Limited logo, shopping bag
The Limited logo
The Limited logo
IBM logos
IBM logo, early application of the outline version
IBM logo
IBM logos, 13 and 8 lines
IBM logos, sampling of color variations
IBM logo, color coding
Annual report cover, IBM
Packages featuring IBM logo
IBM logo
Package designs, IBM Supply Kit
IBM logo
IBM 75th anniversary poster
IBM logo, incorporated into a product name
IBM logo/Palisades Education Center
IBM logo, on official document
IBM logo, eye
IBM logo, bee
IBM logo, M
Adstar logo
Adstar logo
Adstar logos
Adstar logo
Adstar logos
IDEO logo
IDEO logos
IDEO logos
IDEO logo
Morningstar logo
Morningstar logo
Morningstar logo, star configurations
Morningstar logo, star configurations
Morningstar logo, single round O
Morningstar logo, egg
Morningstar logo
Student drawing from Kunstgewerbeschule, Basel
Student drawing from Yale University
Yale University School of Art Graduate Program brochure
Yale University School of Art Graduate Program brochure
Yale University School of Art Graduate Program brochure
Jacket, Eric Gill's "An essay on typography"
Title page and typical design for text pages, Eric Gill's "An essay on typography"
Single-Alphabet type design
Die Neue Typographie
Title page, Tschichold
Congo (chimpanzee) painting
Unknown
DADA-Bild
NEW
Unknown
Neue Wege der Photographie
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Ostsee - Jahr 1931
Eye chart
Campaign contribution

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Contents

Contents

Author

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.001

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14881

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Introduction

Everything we do has some aesthetic implication. It was John Dewey’s contribution to the philosophy of art to point out that art is not something special but a significant part of daily experience, and that a real understanding of life is synonymous with aesthetic enjoyment. “In order to understand the aesthetic in its ultimate and approved forms, one must begin with it in the raw; in the events and scenes that hold the attentive eye and ear of man, arousing his interest and affording him …

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.xi-xii

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.002

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14882

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAestheticsDewey, John, 1859-1952

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Form + Content

To understand the meaning of design is to sense the common thread that weaves its way through the arts of painting, architecture, and industrial and graphic design. It is also to understand the part form and content play in the intricate process of design, and to realize as well that design is also commentary, opinion, a point of view, and social responsibility. To design is much more than simply to assemble, to order, or even to edit; it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, …

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.3-8

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.003

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14883

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAestheticsForm (Aesthetics)

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Good Design Is Goodwill

Michelangelo, responding to the demands of Pope Julius II about the completion of the Sistine Ceiling, replied, “It will be finished when I shall have satisfied myself in the matter of art.” “But it is our pleasure,” retorted the pope, “that you should satisfy us in our desire to have it done quickly.” And it was not until he was threatened with being thrown from the scaffolding that Michelangelo agreed to be more expeditious. On the whole, however, the relationship between Michelangelo and the …

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.12-41

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.004

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14884

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAestheticsArt and business

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Intuition and Ideas

“All knowledge,” said Whitehead, “is derived from and verified by direct intuitive observation.” But such observation provides little comfort for those who need the security of down-to-earth proof. Judgments that lack the support of the opinion makers or of research findings are generally suspect. Some of the reasons, it seems, that intuition has not won accolades are that it is only vaguely understood and virtually impossible to pin down. “What is this intuition?” asks Henri Bergson. “If the …

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.45-51

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.005

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14885

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAesthetics

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Logos . . . Flags . . . Street Signs

“It reminds me of the Georgia chain gang,” quipped an IBM executive when he first eyed the striped logo. The Westinghouse insignia was greeted similarly when it was first shown in 1960: “This looks like a pawnbroker’s sign.” How many exemplary works have gone down the drain because of such pedestrian fault-finding? And how many good designs became bad designs as a consequence of mindless dabbling on the part of clients with little or no understanding of visual logic? …

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.54-61

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.006

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14886

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAesthetics

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The Presentation

Canned presentations have the ring of emptiness. The meaningful presentation is custom designed — for a particular purpose, for a particular person. How to present a new idea is, perhaps, one of the designer’s most difficult tasks. This how is not only a design problem, it also pleads for something novel. Everything a designer does involves presentation of some kind — not only how to explain (present) a particular design to an interested listener (client, reader, spectator), but how the design …

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.70-70

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.007

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14887

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAestheticsBrochures

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What should a logo for Next look like? Choosing a typeface as the basis for the design of a logo is a convenient starting point. Here are two examples: Caslon and Bifur. Caslon is an alphabet designed as far back as 1725 by William Caslon. It appears to be a good choice because it is both elegant and bookish, qualities well suited for educational purposes. Bifur, a novelty face by A. M. Cassandre, was designed in 1929. An unconventional but ingenious design, it has the advantage, to some, of …

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.73-87

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.008

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14888

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAestheticsBrochures

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The Limited

In 1925, Coco Chanel helped change the way one looks at fashion insignias. In the past, identification for products linked with fashion was rather delicate and wispy. Ideas were interpreted literally. The kind of vision it took to use a letterform traditionally associated with heavy industry, with trucks, for example, or, more appropriately, with posters or newspaper headlines, was revolutionary. In 1992, however, the Chanel logo is as spry and timely as ever. Today, almost anything goes. …

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.90-111

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.009

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14889

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAestheticsBrochures

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The IBM Logo

The IBM logo is the IBM look... The purpose of this brochure is to document the origin and development of the IBM logo, to illustrate its use, and to point to some of the design problems involved in its implementation. The importance of the logo as a symbol of goodwill cannot be overestimated. For it is not simply a passive decoration on a nameplate or letterhead; it is also an active ingredient in the complex process of marketing and design. The design of the IBM logo, like any design problem, …

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.115-148

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.010

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14890

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAestheticsBrochures

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AdStar Advanced Storage and Retrieval

1. Letter combinations and letter sequences are determining factors in the design of most logos. The example shown is a straightforward interpretation of the word Adstar. It does little to lead the spectator away from its most obvious interpretation: Ad = advertising, star = Hollywood. The Ad configuration is phonetically and visually separated from the complete word. 2. In the next version the dS combination introduces a jumbled effect. The two-color combination somewhat alleviates the …

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.152-154

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.011

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14891

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAestheticsBrochures

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IDEO Design

Pictures, abstract symbols, materials, and colors are among the ingredients with which a designer or engineer works. To design is to discover relationships and to make arrangements and rearrangements among these ingredients. All design involves combinatorial geometry. The logo for IDEO is based on this discipline. This geometric emphasis, incidentally, is appropriate in terms of form and content. Just as proportion and contrast are aspects of form, appropriateness, that is, fitness to purpose, …

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.158-160

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.012

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14892

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAestheticsBrochures

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Morningstar Investment Advisers

1. A short word is easy and pleasant to read. MORNINGSTAR is the compounding of two words. It is neither short nor easy to read. This (below) is easier to read ... but there are problems inherent in this combination of letters that are impossible to avoid. As a single word, Morningstar seems unwieldy. The letter combinations NIN, GS, and TA tend to form clusters and separate from the whole, causing difficult spacing problems. Condensing each letter saves space and insures compactness. The …

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.166-174

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.013

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14893

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAestheticsBrochures

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Computers, Pencils, and Brushes

Except for the absence of human sensibility, the computer is a most awe-inspiring machine. But the language of the computer is the language of technology, not the language of design. It is also the language of production. It enters the world of creativity only as an adjunct, as a tool — a time-saving device, a means of investigating, retrieving, and executing tedious jobs — but not as the principal player. In education this art versus production dilemma is inescapable. The moment the balance is …

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.181-187

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.014

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14894

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAesthetics

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Aspects of Book Design

Eric Gill’s admirable little book, first published in 1931 in a limited edition, is important less for its erudition about the theory and practice of typography than for the moral support it gives to artists, whose principal concern is the quality of their work; to businessmen, who are chiefly interested in the bottom line; and to printers and publishers, who are more concerned with traditional practices than with wild ideas. Even though An Essay on Typography deals with technical difficulties, …

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.191-196

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.015

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14895

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAestheticsBook design

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A Mentor

Cézanne had been dead nineteen years and Cubism was celebrating its eighteenth birthday when Jan Tschichold wrote “Elementare Typographie.” The art “isms” new and not so new had been around for some time: Impressionism, Pointillism, Cubism, Futurism, Suprematism, Constructivism, Neoplasticism, and Dadaism. But names such as Mondrian, Schwitters, Arp, Malevich, Van Doesburg, Kandinsky, Marinetti, Le Corbusier, and Lissitzky, who represented the avant-garde of painting, architecture, and …

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.199-203

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.016

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14896

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAestheticsTschichold, Jan, 1902-1974

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From Cassandre to Chaos

In the history of painting and design, from Cimabue (1240–1302) to Cassandre (1901–1968), communication between artist and spectator was rarely a problem. Today, the emphasis on style over content in much of what is alleged to be graphic design and communication is, at best, puzzling. Order out of chaos is not the order of the day.* The deluge of design that colors our lives, our print, and our video screens is in harmony with the spirit of our time. No less than drugs and pollution, the big …

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.207-217

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00036.017

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14897

Chapter subject tags:Graphic artsDesignAestheticsCassandre, A. M., 1901-1968

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